God Pounds His Nails
by Karu-DarkAngel
Summary: "So I'm about to die?" Chris grimaced, "Not likely, buddy. I still have a lot of things I want to do on good ol' earth." Eventually Mike/Chris


**A/N: Okay, this has been in my head for a long time now. It is crazy and so far away from how we usually believe death and the afterlife to be that it could actually work. Save for the one out of the norm person you get to know in this chapter there won't be any supernatural beings though, so don't expect any vampires, werwolves or whatever to pop up - they won't. This is just a story a about possibilities I guess. **

**I own no wrestler mentioned in this story and I don't earn anything either. This is fiction. Enjoy.**

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><p>Darkness. Everything around him was suddenly black and Chris felt like he was about to vomit. There was nothing, just an eternity of darkness and then an instant later he felt like he'd lost conscious again only to open his eyes and stare at the figure of a man who was suddenly standing in front of him.<p>

"Ah, an immortal. Haven't seen one of you guys in a while."

He wanted to respond, to ask where the hell he was and what had happened, but the words stuck in his throat when he looked around the room, recognizing his old child's room immediately. He hadn't been here in a long time but everything looked just like he remembered it, from the Maiden and Ozzy posters on the walls to the dark blue bedding.

"Am I dreaming?" it was more a question to himself than to the man sitting on his bed and he spun around to take the room in. He hadn't realized _how_ much exactly he'd missed it.

"No, not exactly." the voice sounded just a tad amused, a distinct smile hidden underneath the words. Chris frowned.

"Then where am I? …because I definitely went to sleep in Tampa." a part of him wondered why he wasn't freaking out, but it just didn't seem appropriate right now. The familiar environment set him at ease and even the tall stranger had the feeling of _friend_ around him.

"You are between the worlds… neither here nor there." even now the man somehow sounded amused and his voice- he remembered that voice from somewhere. Chris knew that he knew that voice, that he should know it at least, but he just couldn't seem to remember.

It took him a moment to concentrate on what he'd said just now and another frown settled on his face. Between the worlds? He only knew _one_ world – okay, probably two, but- …oh.

"I… am dead?" the astonishment was probably written all over his face.

"No, you aren't. As I said: you're neither here nor there." the tall man sighed and run a hand through his long hair, black strands breaking loose from where they were tied together on the back of his back. Even that motion seemed so unbelievable familiar that it actually hurt his eyes.

"Okay." he settled in the chair in front of his desk, "So I am not dead, but if you say _between the worlds_ it means that I'm not really _alive_ either… that leads me to the question who _you_ are."

The other man laughed, "I am the ferryman, the guy who brings people from one side to the other. Mahaf, Charon, Karun… whatever you wanna call me I guess."

"So I'm about to die?" Chris grimaced, "Not likely, buddy. I still have a lot of things I want to do on good ol' earth."

"I told you, you are an immortal. You can't die, that's the sole reason you are here and not already in the other place."

Immortal? He stopped the "What the fuck?" form escaping his lips, but it still had to be written all over his face. Because really, there was no such thing as _being immortal_ – as much as he hated to admit it. That only left a few options and he liked neither of them and well, the only true immortal creatures he came up with in his inner search were vampires of all things and he really didn't like the idea of becoming a bloodsucker.

"How can I be immortal? …I'm not a vamp or something, am I? Because that would suck."

This time the deep chuckle sent a shiver down his spine because it sounded so much like _home_, like something he had forgotten and should be able to remember…

"No, you are not a vampire, let me assure you of that. You are just one of the very few humans who _reject death_."

"I…" he emphasized the word," _reject_ death? I mean… don't get me wrong, of course I don't wanna die, but how is this even possible?"

A grin spread on the man's face, "It's simple: Your soul love life too much to let go of it. It's a rather uncommon thing, let me tell you that, but there are a couple of humans like this, the ones who feel such joy in life that death can't take a hold of him. Every five years or so I stumble over one… though it is quite interesting that most of you seem to have blond hair."

When he said the words there was a strange gleam in the man's eyes for a second, and for the first time Chris really _looked_ at him. What he saw was quite astonishing to say the least, because he even looked remarkably familiar, too familiar to be exact.

"You look like someone I know." he examined the ferryman, "Or, to put it right, you look like _a few_ people I know."

He received no answer except for an enigmatic grin.

"…but you only see what you want to see. That's what Adam always says." Chris grinned right back and was rewarded with an amused shrug form the dark haired man sitting on his bed. The movement revealed his muscled arms and shoulders.

"Well, so tell me who you see, Christopher Irvine." his voice was smooth with just the hint of a challenge behind it, and suddenly Chris knew who it belonged to. _Mike_. An older version of him – probably ten years older – but the way he pronounced the words was still the same, the seductive touch in every syllable not going unnoticed by him.

"For voice his Mike's. A little deeper, but still his. And your grin is his too, the way you curl your lips when you're amused is unmistakable." his eyes traveled along the ferryman's body while he spoke and now that he knew it was pretty obvious from whom he was made of.

"Your body, your entire physique is Mark's. You're probably a little less tall and not as muscular, but the core is still him. It shows in the way you move, how you flex your muscles without noticing… and your hair is probably Mark's too, even though I think there is a lot of Phil in there. His was always straighter and shinier."

Pondering what he saw Chris stopped for an instant in his examination and watched the man opposite him give him another one of those Mike-smirks.

"Your lip ring is Phil again, definitely, and that stubble is _so_ Adam, even if it is black. The tattoos could be from anyone really, but I know that that stars and skulls thing is Adam's and a large part of your left arm is obviously Rich…" he trailed off when his eyes fixed on the ferryman's face.

They were chancing, switching colors probably every teen seconds or so and going from green to brown, then to a greenish brown, back to green and finally to gray.

Stumbling back a step in horror Chris nearly fell to the floor in his haste to get away from that look he hadn't seen in so many years …he _knew_ those eyes, knew who they belonged to – or rather _had_ belonged to.

"Turn that off! That is not funny…" he had to force the words to leave his lips, his whole body shaking with a mixture of fear and rage. Chris didn't care about who he was talking to right then, it could have been Jesus himself and he wouldn't have bothered to lower his voice. God, those eyes!

The ferryman raised a black eyebrow at him and then stepped in front of the mirror beside the door, looking himself over. He stared at his eyes until they suddenly changed colors again, this time to a bright blue.

"Yeah, I remember him." turning around the tall man sat back on the bed, "Another immortal, a pure soul who saw too much hardship over time. It changed him."

"But…" his voice failed him at the first try and Chris clenched his hands into his jeans in an attempt to regain control, "…those were Chris' eyes. He is dead, he cannot-"

He was dead, he _had to be_ dead. He killed himself, killed his beautiful wife, killed his innocent little son and left another one behind to live with his father's sins. He couldn't be alive.

Soft brown eyes looked at him, "I do not judge those who stand in front of me, Christopher Irvine. In here are only the ones who died and cross over to next realm and the ones who cannot die and will go back to the world of the living because they cling to life too desperately for death to reach them. Nothing more, nothing less."

A part of him wanted to scream at the dark haired man in front of him, wanted to know how Chris Benoit got a second life and so many good honest men who had done nothing wrong in their lives and died young hadn't – then he remembered in a moment of clarity that this wasn't for him to decide. God chose between live and death while Chris was only a mortal, he had no place to interfere in the Lord's business.

"I don't know what to say." he shook his head.

The man opposite him seemed to sense his trouble, "When you come here you go back to being _yourself_ …no matter how many lives you lived, if you lost your memory, if you were severely wounded in the world of the living, when you come to me you go back to being the person you were when you first stood in front of me. What happened in your world does not affect you in here … before me you will always be yourself, always able to look back at your former lives with the clarity you don't posses while human."

Opening his mouth to say something and closing it again when he realized that there was nothing to say Chris sat down beside the ferryman. Pressing his palms to his temples he tried to clear his head, but it didn't entirely work.

"You- you said _lives_. Does that mean this not-being-able-to-die thing lasts longer than one lifetime?" the thought alone made him feel very uneasy.

Cristal blue eyes looked down at him, "It lasts as long as your spirit refuses to die."

"Okay…" that wasn't exactly what he had wanted to hear, because to be honest Chris didn't feel like he would want to die anytime in at least the next fifty years – life was great, why give it away for a life in heaven or hell or _the other realm_ or whatever when couldn't go back to good ol' earth for forever once he'd crossed into the other world?

Standing up from the bed he walked around the room, taking the surroundings of his beloved old home one last time before he had to go. Really, he loved being there, but he still had a life to go back to and hopefully he could get some badly needed hours of sleep before the kids got up.

"I kinda like it here even if this whole situation is totally crazy, but I need to really go home now. Don't want my wife to go bananas because I don't wake up or some shit like that." he sent the ferryman a grin that the other man didn't return.

"If you had the chance to change one thing about your physical appearance, what would it be?"

Caught absolutely on the wrong foot by the out of context question Chris just stared at the tall man opposite him – did being the ferryman between the worlds make you crazy or was that just how the guy worked?

He decided to play nice – you didn't mess with deities (or whatever this man was) when you could prevent it – and thought about the question for a second, "Well, I always wanted to be taller when I was young, but that's just one of the things you can't change… can I go home now, please? I'm tiered."

This time there was something like pity in the green eyes of the dark haired man, "You are dead."

Chris rolled his eyes, "You said that already, and you also said that I can't die."

"You had a heart attack." a gentle hand was placed on his shoulder, "You were in your bed in Tampa and had a heart attack while asleep. There is nothing that can be done about that, for the human world Christopher Irvine is dead."

For the first time since he had found himself in this room with the strange looking guy that carried souls from one world to the other did the blonde feel panic kicking in.

Chris raised his arms in defense, "But you said that I can't-"

"_Your soul love life too much to let go of it." "…as long as your spirit refuses to die."_

"I said that your _spirit_ cannot die." the grip on his shoulder became stronger and Chris started to trash, to fight against the hand holding him in position with so much force that it felt like the energy was sucked out of his body.

"I have a wife, I have kids." he started to plead now, not caring how desperate his voice sounded. He was scared. The ferryman couldn't do that to him, he couldn't take away his family from him, "Please, I do everything. I beg you… no, please…"

There was sorrow in the now black eyes returning his gaze, "I am sorry. I wish you a successful second life, Christopher Irvine."

Those were the last words Chris heard before his vision started to darken, the room and the man beside him slipping away from reality when the world started to become black again, all senses leaving him. Once more there was nothing around him but an eternity of darkness, then he thought he lost consciousness for an instant only to be brought back again, a sharp, all overlaying pain surging through his body.

Bright white light blinded his eyes when he tried to open them. So much pain.

"He his waking up!"

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><p><strong>"We can also never forget or forgive this horrible acts that he did and that overshadows everything else in his life that he did, but you can't tell the story of pro wrestling without talking about Chris Benoit." - Chris Jericho<strong>

**I don't have anything more than this sentence to add about the whole Benoit thing because I don't think it is my place to discuss or judge anything regarding what he did. Aside from that I'd like to know if it was too crazy a story or if I actually managed to get a few of you interested in this madness.**


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